Adding resistance to a pickup?

[Dr.J4ckal]

Hi, I have a guitar with 1 vol pot and 1 tone pot. I always have a problem with muddy neck pickup in this particular guitar, until I found that the tone pot measures at only 440k. After I changed the pot the neck pickup open up but the bridge is now too shrill. I try to compensate with amp EQ, but still doesn't sound as good as before. I wonder if there might be some way to add some resistance only to the bridge pickup to fatten it up a bit?

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Adding resistance to a pickup?

Yeah you can solder a resistor in line. If i remember right and someone feel free to correct me cause i dont have the guitar in front of me to check but i think i used a 270k ohm resistor between the hot wire of the pickup and the ground and it did the trick.

Oh there is a caveat though your combined positions with both pickups on will also see increased load in this scenario though.

 

[Artie]

Re: Adding resistance to a pickup?

I wonder if there might be some way to add some resistance only to the bridge pickup to fatten it up a bit?

Resistance, by itself, will only lower the volume, not the EQ curve. What you need is to do a resistor in series with a cap. A dedicated tone control, so to speak. But a tone control shunts highs to ground. You need to block lows. So you do the cap/resistance in series to the output. Gimme a sec, or do a search for my "demud" mod.

 

[LtKojak]

Re: Adding resistance to a pickup?

Hi, I have a guitar with 1 vol pot and 1 tone pot. I always have a problem with muddy neck pickup in this particular guitar, until I found that the tone pot measures at only 440k. After I changed the pot the neck pickup open up but the bridge is now too shrill. I try to compensate with amp EQ, but still doesn't sound as good as before. I wonder if there might be some way to add some resistance only to the bridge pickup to fatten it up a bit?

You need to get used to the new tone... don't change anything before playing it for a couple of weeks.

HTH,